Rockland official slams state transit plan for Tappan Zee corridor

Saturday

Sep 21, 2013 at 2:00 AM

ORANGEBURG — Rockland County Executive Scott Vanderhoef criticized the state Friday for failing to advance his county's interests in securing more and better transit options through the Tappan Zee corridor.

Judy Rife

ORANGEBURG — Rockland County Executive Scott Vanderhoef criticized the state Friday for failing to advance his county's interests in securing more and better transit options through the Tappan Zee corridor.

Vanderhoef, speaking at a Tappan Zee Bridge Mass Transit Task Force meeting, said the plans for express bus service that the state has proposed were of "absolutely no benefit to Rockland County" in terms of improving current travel times or getting people out of their cars.

"You've given us nothing," said Vanderhoef as he summarized a four-page letter about shortcomings in the options and potential solutions.

The county executive's comments triggered a tense, hourlong exchange among task force members that highlighted the differences in Rockland's and Westchester's transit goals and the state's determination to spend as little money as possible on them.

Rockland representatives, for example, want faster travel times for Tappan Zee Express buses to the Metro-North station in Tarrytown — the station of choice for county residents — and to employment centers in and around White Plains.

The state, as well as Westchester representatives, want Rockland buses to bypass Tarrytown and take everybody to a developing transit hub in White Plains, where they can transfer to the train or to other buses to employment centers.

"Not all of this is about getting Rockland to the train," said White Plains Mayor Tom Roach. "This can't all be about solving one issue. I get nothing from Rockland getting on the train in White Plains."

The Mid-Hudson Economic Development Council selected Roach's proposal for creating a more robust transit center around the train station as a contender for state funding this week.

Trent Lethco of Arup, the state's consulting engineering firm, claimed that signal prioritization and other low-cost traffic controls will result in a Rockland-to-White Plains trip than is "comparable" in travel time to the present Rockland-to-Tarrytown trip. But Rockland wants a faster bus trip to the train, not a comparable one, and a faster bus trip from Suffern to White Plains.

Jeff Zupan of the Regional Plan Association and Veronica Vanterpool of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign complained that the task force was being expected to make decisions without adequate information, such as the data to back up Lethco's claims.

Zupan also pointed out that the state has repeatedly dismissed the recurring suggestion about building a ramp off the new bridge to the Tarrytown train station to improve travel times on the grounds that it was too expensive or too visually intrusive.

"We're in the dark," said Zupan. "Let's wrestle the ramp to the ground. Let's see what it would cost, what it would look like."

He and others made a similar suggestion about Thruway improvements in Rockland County that would boost travel times for express buses and set the stage for a true bus-rapid transit system. The state, to save time and money, discarded the Thruway improvements, and the ramp, that were part of the previous plan for a new bridge.

The task force will continue refining its short-, mid- and long-term recommendations for new transit services in the corridor at its next meeting, on Oct. 18. Its report is due in December.